Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (7 page)

Algorithms dictated the sequential
steps computers followed to perform a task. Step-by-step, the
algorithm told the computer what to do. Algorithms worked no
differently than a recipe to bake a cake. Line-by-line, the
computer was told what step to execute next.

In a little over ten
years, AI had progressed from beating the best player
chess
player in
the world, to beating the best Jeopardy players in the world. AI
was moving closer and closer towards strong AI—towards thinking
like a human.

But, many pundits remained
skeptical as to
whether
computers would ever match
the intelligence of human beings
. They said there’d never be a
genuinely
strong AI. In these
prognosticator’s eyes, computer and human intelligence would never
achieve parity.

Josh marveled at these
doubters. AI
was deployed
so widely that
if
it disappeared, the world economy
would cease to function. Without AI, no one could use a search
engine, trade stocks online, or ask Apple’s Siri a question. Planes
would fall out of the sky. War would
be fought as
it was during World War
II.

While it was true that AI did not
match the intelligence of human beings in 2020, Josh reasoned that
technology was progressing exponentially. Even if AI technology
progressed more linearly, Josh thought strong AI would occur well
within his lifetime.

Dystopian predictions for
AI were at the other end of the spectrum. With this mindset, once
strong AI
happened
, the next logical step was
a
Terminator
-like, apocalyptic world. Computers and robots would enslave
humanity to work for the good of the machines, plugged into
the
Matrix
. Josh
felt that while strong AI had downside risks, the more logical
progression was that AI would augment human capability.

For example, think how
much smarter a search engine on a
smartphone
made everyone. In fact, were
Josh made
king
for a day, he would change the name of AI to
extended intelligence
.
Josh viewed this scenario as the most likely. He wasn’t naïve. AI
would drastically hurt some forms of employment like taxi cab
drivers, delivery men, and long-haul truckers. The pain would be
real. And he did worry about the consequences to the economy. But,
he felt that humanity would benefit from AI offerings that
collectively improved the human experience. Josh expected the
Bionic Man instead of Skynet. At least that was his
hope.

Machine learning and NLP were the
fields within AI that intrigued Josh the most.

Machine learning algorithms
statistically sliced and diced data by classifying, clustering, and
making recommendations. Movie recommendation engines and online
shopping carts that suggested what you might like, based on past
purchases, often used machine learning algorithms.

NLP attempted to
understand text—characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and the
like. The lines often blurred between these
fields. For example,
CyberAI
employed machine learning algorithms to improve the NLP
capabilities of Josh’s AI.

In the early 2010’s
some
trends
mingled
to rapidly increase the
effectiveness of AI
. There was an
explosion of large data sets created by the likes Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram.
This
was
dubbed, ‘Big Data,’ by the press. In
the history of
humanity
, data of this size and variety
had never been created so fast.

Larger datasets gave
machine learning more information from which to learn. Computers
could learn to recognize cats, from the millions of cat photos
people posted on social media. Also, as predicted by Moore’s Law,
computer processing power kept increasing exponentially. And now,
you could cheaply rent s
upercomputers
over the Internet cloud
from Amazon and Microsoft.

Josh felt like he was born
at the right time, selected for just this moment in history. He was
excited to be down-selected to receive NSA funding.
T
he nine months
that Josh had been a part of Defense Innovations Accelerator were
the best months of his life.

General Shields was like a
dad to Josh. He was demanding, imaginative, determined, and wise.
Most of all, Josh felt the General
genuinely
cared about his success. He
trusted that Shields would move mountains to help CyberAI
succeed
.

For the past week,
thinking of
this
demo was like carrying a
backpack
full of bricks. Josh knew
he was not making sufficient progress since last month’s demo.
Without advancement, CyberAI would not improve enterprise
cybersecurity
by
10X. And the company would fail.

Also
, the agreement that Josh signed
with the Accelerator provided office space and access to mentors
for a year. Only three months remained. Josh wanted to impress the
General, so he’d exercise the option to extend CyberAI’s time in
the Accelerator.

Finally, the company had
burned through $490,000 of the $750,000 of the Accelerators’
initial investment—the seed round—in the last nine months. The
money went primarily
for
salaries.
The ‘seed
round,’ was the term used to denote the first time outside capital
was received. Other
funding
rounds
that followed
were called
, ‘Series A,’
‘Series B,’ and so on.

Josh had six employees,
including himself, and his Chief Technology Officer—Vishnu, ‘Vish’
Kumar. In return for the capital, Defense Innovations received 21%
of the equity. Josh took a minimal salary—enough to pay rent
for
his
apartment and buy the ramen he ate every night.

CyberAI did have two
ongoing
paid
pilot projects, providing a total revenue stream of $175,000,
although he’d only received kickoff payments and milestone
payments. Pilots were a ‘try-before-you-buy’ approach to
selling
enterprise software. Often enterprises expected pilot
programs for free. Josh persuaded the companies to pay.

Selling enterprise
software, especially as a startup like CyberAI, was extremely
challenging. Most enterprises did not want to be guinea pigs and
try something new from an unproven startup. And yet, the single
greatest goal of an enterprise software company was to land their
first referenceable clients. One benefit to selling
enterprise cybersecurity
software was that many organizations, especially
government
organizations
, eschewed cloud delivery
models for security concerns. Josh knew that over time, he’d have
to develop a cloud-subscription offering to complement on-premise
software delivery.

Running CyberAI
was much more than developing advanced AI algorithms. CyberAI had
to make more money than it spent. Or, it had to find more
investment dollars. These pressures seeped into Josh’s
consciousness. They were always there. On one end
of the balance scale, were Josh’s hopes and
dreams. On the other
side,
was
the real-time dollar value of
CyberAI’s checking account. Josh had a recurring nightmare in which
he told his employees that he could no longer pay them.

Today’s balance in the
checking account was $373,598.13. With his monthly burn rate of
$55,000, Josh had six more months of funding. Before the
money
ran out,
Josh either needed more investment
capital,
or to secure revenue from
an enterprise software deal. Or, he’d be forced to declare
bankruptcy
.

5:00 p.m. (EDT), Monday, July 27, 2020
- Columbia, MD

Suite 602, Conference
Room, Defense Innovations Accelerator

“
Hi, Josh,” said the
General. “I can’t wait to see what you have for me
today!”

General Shields followed
his hearty greeting
by
introducing
Lin Liu. Josh did a double
take. Then he remembered his crisis.
His dimples uncharacteristically faded.

“
Josh, before you show me
your demo, why don’t you give Lin your elevator pitch?”

“
Yes,
sir. Lin, CyberAI provides
enterprise cybersecurity
software to Fortune 1000 firms. What differentiates CyberAI
from other cybersecurity offerings is our AI. Once
you deploy CyberAI in your
business
, you have a world class AI engine
to augment your
cybersecurity
team. CyberAI works 24/7,
365 days a year—to protect and defend your IT
infrastructure.

“
When it recognizes bad
things—viruses, Trojan horses, botnet attacks—it either alerts your
security administrators or automatically deals with the problem. In
one of our pilot deployments, we were able to reduce their security
department from over 100 engineers to 10
engineers
. So you can see that the
cost savings are massive.”

Lin grinned. “Impressive. How does it
differ from Gamification Systems’ software that I saw last
Friday?”

“
I’ve never seen a
Gamification
demo,
and I
don’t
know their exact architecture,
but my understanding is that they don’t specialize in AI
like
we do.
” Josh’s bravado masked the fact that the same
question
plagued him.

The General added, “It’s
the best AI I’ve seen for
cybersecurity
. Now, wait until you see
his demo.”

Josh stammered. “General,
we’ve hit a roadblock with improvements in the NLP. I can’t show
you anything new. Our level of detection of cyber-threats is nearly
the same as it was last time. The AI is recognizing 83% of the
security events
we’re
testing it against.”

Josh believed the company
would only be
successful
if the AI
discovered
upwards of 95% of
nefarious
cyber
-events. He thought that performing above the 95% threshold
would constitute his 10X improvement.

The General’s granite jaw
tightened. Clasping both hands to cover his mouth, he fixed his
searing stare on the Founder. Time stopped for Josh. The bricks in
his stress backpack
fell,
one-by-one, into the
pit of his
stomach.

CyberAI was his life. Josh couldn’t
even entertain the thought of failure.

“
Son, I’m a five-star
General, the first
five-star
since the Korean War.” Josh’s
heart quivered. “I run the most powerful spy organization in the
history of man. And right now, you have my undivided attention. I
could be at the Fort, receiving analysis to the latest SIGINT on
terrorists that want to destroy our country. Or, I could be
briefing the President of the United States. Instead, I’ve chosen
to invest my time—and NSA capital—in you. Do you know how many AI
and
cybersecurity
companies want to be a part of this Accelerator?
And you have nothing to show me?”

If the General’s
voice
were
a machine gun, Josh’s body would’ve been
riddled
with holes. Josh
cleared his throat to speak, but the General
interrupted—mid-gulp.

“
Charl—I mean Josh,
CyberAI was the first company we down-selected for the Accelerator.
You were picked
first,
because I believe in you most. This nation
depends
on its
entrepreneurs
to care for the protection
and prosperity of its next generation. It’s your job to provide
cutting-edge
cybersecurity
software to the US taxpayer. Every minute,
hackers launch an exponentially growing number of sophisticated
cyber-attacks against DoD networks. I can’t hire enough people to
deal with it all. I need you to make your shit work!” The General
slammed his right palm on the conference table.

“
General Shields, I want
you to know, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. We’re
going to get orders of magnitude improvement for the next demo. I
promise you that.”

The General continued to
glower at Josh. Then the intensity in his face began to wane. “Ok,
I believe you. You’ve never let me down before. Every demo
before
this has
shown spectacular improvement. And that’s the right answer. 99
times out of 100, I would never get such
a succinct
briefing and honest
assessment from either a
govie
or a contractor. They would have
given me a
90-minute
presentation
on
why, despite the apparent lack of success, they were indeed
succeeding.